IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5126.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regionalizing telecommunications reform in West Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Kessides, Ioannis N.
  • Noll, Roger G.
  • Benjamin, Nancy C.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that significant welfare gains could be realized through deep forms of regional integration which entail harmonization of legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks. Reforms that reduce cross-border transaction costs and improve the performance of “backbone” infrastructure services are arguably even more important for the creation of an open, unified regional economic space than trade policy reforms narrowly defined. This paper assesses the potential gains from regionalized telecommunications policy in West Africa. To this end, the paper: (i) discusses how regional cooperation can overcome national limits in technical expertise, enhance the capacity of nations credibly to commit to stable regulatory policy, and ultimately facilitate infrastructure investment in the region; (ii) identifies trade-distorting regulations that inhibit opportunities for regional trade and economic development, and so are good candidates for regional trade negotiations to reduce indirect trade barriers; and (iii) describes substantive elements of a harmonized regional regulatory policy that can deliver immediate performance benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Kessides, Ioannis N. & Noll, Roger G. & Benjamin, Nancy C., 2009. "Regionalizing telecommunications reform in West Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5126, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2009/11/11/000158349_20091111153540/Rendered/PDF/WPS5126.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. World Bank, 2010. "Congo, Democratic Republic of - Enhanced Integration Framework Program (EIF) : diagnostic trade integration study," World Bank Publications - Reports 2971, The World Bank Group.
    2. Mensah,Justice Tei & Hirfrfot,Kibrom Tafere & Abay,Kibrom A., 2022. "Saving Lives through Technology : Mobile Phones and Infant Mortality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9978, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    E-Business; Environmental Economics&Policies; ICT Policy and Strategies; Transport Economics Policy&Planning; Emerging Markets;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.